By Alan Scherstuhl July 03, 2013

Superheroes are bigger than comic books, so now they're in movies—all movies, it seems, forever, no matter what. But in another sense they're bigger than movies, too. Over decades of serial storytelling, their histories have swelled, their key traits have multiplied, and the iterations of any particular character have become legion. You like Spider-Man, you say? Well, which one? The high school inventor, the swingin' ’70s hunk, the hobo clone, the dull husband whose daughter grows up to be Spider-Girl? Maybe the science teacher who is also the totemic vessel of an... More >>>